Posted By Ryan Casey On January 10, 2011 @ 1:59 pm In Football,Recruiting | No Comments

Brendon Austin. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

Brendon Austin remains firmly committed to Stanford in the wake of coach Jim Harbaugh jumping to the NFL.

Austin, the No. 1 football recruit in the state according to Rivals.com, committed to Stanford in May. Nothing’s changed.

“I always kind of put that in the back of my mind, that it was a possibility he would be leaving,” Austin said this afternoon. “I mean, this time last year, he was interviewing for other jobs. There kind of always was a possibility that he might leave, so you know what you’re getting into. With me, it’s always been looking at the whole picture, not just football. Don’t get me wrong, they had an amazing season with the Orange Bowl and (quarterback Andrew) Luck and everything, but football is a part of Stanford. I’m going there for more than just that.”

“He recognizes the value of a Stanford education,” added Brendon’s father, Doug. “He also recognizes that they’ve assembled an extraordinary group of young men for that football team and thus far it looks like the 2011 (recruiting) class is holding.”

Harbaugh’s departure wasn’t altogether unexpected by the Austins.

“We talked about this quite a bit, because (Harbaugh) was a hot commodity even coming out of last season,” Doug Austin said. “We were hopeful that he’d stay awhile, but we recognized the risk was there.”

Doug Austin said Stanford offensive line coach Tim Drevno stopped by last Friday. While there’s no guarantee Drevno would be retained by Stanford’s new staff, he told Austin to be ready to play right away. The original plan for Austin had been a likely redshirt.

“What he’s looking at is really building me up, getting me ready,” Austin said. “He kind of wants me to go into Stanford hitting the ground running so when I get there, I’m ready to go right off the bat. Right now, projection-wise, it looks like I’m maybe going to be backing up (offensive tackle) Jonathan Martin, but that’s not quite certain yet. They’re still going to decide if they’re going to give me a redshirt.”

Other schools have stayed in contact, with a few checking in recently to see if Austin was planning on reopening his recruitment, but Doug Austin said, “They’ve been respectful, and people who have known him for a long time.”

Bottom line? Austin remains fully committed to Stanford.

“Like most kids, Brendon’s had a dream to play in the NFL since he was 7-years-old,” Doug Austin said. “He’s going to continue to work hard and try to fulfill that dream, but at the same time, guess what? Football ends. He just sees a wonderful and special opportunity at Stanford. He’s going to grow up and be surrounded by some pretty special people in a great environment.

Austin took part in the Offense-Defense All-American Bowl earlier this month.

“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “I was really impressed with the amount of athletes, just really, really good athletes, that they had there. I had a good time.”